John Oliver’s Sage, British Advice to Meghan Markle: Get Out Now
[embedded content] Americans might be in a tizzy about our very own Meghan Markle marrying a prince..
Americans might be in a tizzy about our very own Meghan Markle marrying a prince—Harry, to be precise, in case you’ve been living under a rock—but on Wednesday night, John Oliver threw water on all of their royal fantasies when he told Stephen Colbert, “I would not blame her if she pulled out of this at the last minute.”
Why on earth would he say that? As the British comedian pointed out, “I don’t think you need to have just seen the pilot episode of The Crown to get a basic sense that she might be marrying into a family that could cause some emotional complications.” When Colbert suggested that the younger members of the royal family seem to have a bit more chill than their elders, Oliver didn’t budge: “I mean, they’re an emotionally stunted group of fundamentally flawed people doing a very silly pseudo-job. That’s what she’s marrying into. So I hope she likes it. It’s going to be weird for her.”
This is not Oliver’s first time dinging the particular fantasy of belonging to the royal family. When Seth Meyers asked him about the royal engagement back in November, Oliver said, “It is very difficult for me to give less of a shit than I give now.”
“Americans definitely care more than British people do,” Oliver continued, adding, “It’s just Americans. Americans love the idea of watching British people do something objectively silly.”
In general, Oliver does not appear to be a huge fan of monarchies. As he once pointed out on Last Week Tonight, “The gene pool of European royalty is so small [that] the only difference between [a royal wedding] and an Alabama wedding are the amount of paper plates at the reception, and how drunk the violin player’s going to be.” When speaking with Meyers, he compared monarchies to vestigial organs, saying, “It’s a weird thing to have. It’s like if you had a tail. That would be weird. You don’t need a tail. Maybe at some point in your family’s history it was helpful, but I don’t know. But you don’t need it now.”
Oliver might just be negging the British monarchy, crossing his fingers behind his back and praying that one day he might become a royal himself—but it sure doesn’t look like it. “I would not marry into the royal family,” he told Colbert. “I’m a commoner; I would not be welcome—especially after what I’ve just said.”
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Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com. She was formerly an editorial assistant at Slate and lives in Brooklyn.
